Goldman paused. His wrinkled hand fidgeted with the metal handle, pulling it up and down.
“Yeah,” he said. The way he said it, it sounded more like a sigh than a word. “I’ll be alright if I know you’re going to catch up with those Nomads at some point. They sound like good people. That’s what you need right now. Go south with them Eda. Go as far south as your legs will carry you. Find somewhere remote, somewhere that’s not easy to access for the average traveler, and try to have yourself a life of sorts.”
“And you’ll stay here?” Eda asked.
“Yeah,” he said.
He smiled sheepishly.
“I shouldn’t have said some of the things I did,” he said. “Back down there on the beach I mean. Jeez, you didn’t have to hear that. You probably think I’m crazy or at the very least a delusional paranoid wreck.”
“At least you’re not boring,” Eda said.
“C’mon,” Goldman said, laughing as he pulled the front door open. Eda felt a cold draught seep into the apartment and rush across the room to greet her. She could almost taste the salt of the sea in the air.
They set off towards the road marked 93. That was the highway that would lead Eda and Frankie Boy back to the 90, which traveled west and inland out of Boston. With any luck the Nomads’ caravan hadn’t turned south yet. The only way to find out for sure was for Eda and Frankie Boy to cover the miles and to do it fast. They couldn’t afford to stroll.
More walking. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant thought but if there was something great at the end of it, it’d be worth it.
As they traveled west on the empty highway, Goldman exhibited occasional signs of distress. Eda was forced to slow down to keep an eye on him. At first, the old man just mumbled to himself. He sounded like he was berating someone under his breath. Eda touched him on the arm and he flinched. She asked him to repeat what he’d said but Goldman just shook his head and looked the other way.
Soon he wandered ahead of Eda, his head bowed like a repentant sinner walking to the gallows.
“Goldman,” Eda called out in a shocked voice. “What are you doing?”
The old man stopped dead. After a long silence, he looked back at Eda, took off his cap and she saw the sweat gushing off his brow.
“Where am I?” he said.
Goldman’s affable old features had degenerated into a mask of terror. His eyes were big and childlike. The world was a strange and terrifying place for this version of Talbot Goldman. He was a man falling with no safety net.
Eda walked over to him, staring into those vacant eyes.
“Emily?” he said when he saw her coming.
Eda stopped and shook her head.
“It’s Eda,” she said. “Remember? You’re having one of your blackouts Goldman. You’re escorting me and Frankie Boy out of the city. Okay?”
After a moment, Goldman’s distraught expression began to fade. Thank God, the eyes cleared and he was nodding his head. Slowly he sat down on the road, cross-legged like an ancient yogi.
“It just comes all of a sudden,” he said a minute later. “I don’t understand it. It’s like my whole identity falls into a black hole. Everything familiar is gone and I’m sinking. These lapses, they’re happening more frequently.”
He looked up at Eda. His pale, heavily wrinkled face was almost transparent.
“For a second there, I thought...I thought you were my Emily.”
“I’m sorry,” Eda said, walking closer.
She took the backpack off and her body shuddered with relief. Then she sat down on the road opposite Goldman. A warm breeze fluttered around her neck.
“I can’t leave you alone like this,” she said to Goldman. “You’re sick.”
As she spoke, she slid the rifle strap down her shoulder and lowered the weapon onto the surface of the road. Frankie Boy stood at a distance, eager to keep moving. When he realized it wasn’t happening, the German Shepherd came back over and sat down, pressing his weight against Eda’s back.
“I’m not sick,” Goldman said. “When you’re sick there’s a chance of recovery. I’m dying.”
“You don’t know that,” Eda said. “But just in case, I’m going to stay with you.”
Goldman waved a hand in the air, like he was brushing the suggestion aside. He was about to say something when Eda cut him off.
“It’s your mind,” she said. “You’re seeing things Goldman for God’s sake. Things that aren’t there. People that aren’t there. Hallucinations, you know? And you’re having these blackouts too. It’s the war – it has to be. It did something to your head.”
Goldman sat in silence, staring down at the road.
Eda felt something land on her head. She looked up and felt the muggy air pressing against her skin. Rain was coming.
She lifted up the hood of her rain cloak. Goldman sat opposite, now staring over Eda’s shoulder into nothingness. Apart from the cap on his head the old man had no protection from the rain.
“Let’s get you back home,” Eda said. “You want my advice? You need to start taking it easy Goldman – all this running around chasing ghosts all day, it’s not good for you.”
The rain crashed down all of a sudden. It was as if the universe had flicked the switch to full power. Eda closed her eyes for a second, listening to the rat-a-tat rhythm of water exploding off the top of her hood. The rain felt like home, but today she couldn’t sit there and enjoy it like she wanted to. Like she used to do back in New York when she’d sit down in the middle of the street and let it drench her.
The old man didn’t need a cold or some other preventable illness on top of everything else.
“Let’s go,” Eda said, tugging on his arm.
But Goldman shook his head and stayed in a sitting position on the road. His uniform was peppered with dark raindrops.
“I don’t have long to go in this world,” he called out over the rain. As he spoke, he looked Eda dead in the eye. “You’re not going to waste your time here in Boston with a dying old man for God’s sake.”
He smiled.
“Thank you though…”
The blankness in his eyes came back, flickering on and off like a light.
“Find the others,” he said. “Run for your lives while you still can.”
Goldman’s eyes drifted towards the downtown skyscrapers. From a distance they looked like miniature tower blocks rooted to the skyline. Black shapes, at the mercy of time.
The old man’s gaze drifted over Eda’s shoulder.
“Jesus Christ,” he said.
Frankie Boy began to growl. He was still pressed up tight against Eda’s back and it felt like there was an electric drill going off inside her. The dog was staring in the same direction as Goldman.
East. The direction they’d just come from.
Goldman jumped to his feet. At the same time, Eda turned around, her heart thumping.
There was a man on the highway. He was standing about a hundred meters away, watching them.
“I knew it,” Goldman said, stepping in front of Eda. He was wide-eyed as he pointed his M4 at the ghostly figure in the distance. “Son of a bitch. He’s probably been tailing me for days. Tailing us. He coulda taken me out anytime. Taken you out.”
The stranger began walking towards them.
Slowly.
Eda strained her eyes, peering through the gray haze at the man. He was wearing a faded, dark red military uniform with a matching cap on his head. There was a yellow logo splattered on the left arm of the uniform – it might have been a flag or some other kind of foreign symbol. Eda saw a white tuft of hair sticking out of his chin – a long goatee that added a devilish flavor to his exotic appearance.
The man shouted at them in an incomprehensible tongue. He had a deep, booming voice, angry and outraged. In his hand he carried what looked like a semi-automatic rifle, similar to the M4 that Goldman favored.
“Long time no see you bastard,” Goldman yelled back.
He glanced over his
shoulder at Eda.
“Time for you to go,” Goldman said. “You and the dog. Get away from the east coast. Go. Go now! This is between me and the chink.”
“No,” Eda said, grabbing Goldman by the arm. “I can’t…”
“GO!”
Goldman’s eyes spilled over with rage. He was so far removed from the broken shell of a man he’d been just moments earlier that Eda found herself dragging Frankie Boy away like he told her to. The dog was barking at the mystery man further down the road.
Eda tugged on his coat.
“C’mon Frankie,” she said. It felt like she was hauling a lump of dog-shaped iron across the highway. “C’mon!”
Goldman began walking towards the stranger. As he walked he yelled:
“So you waited till I was on open ground huh? Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. Well that sounds like a damn fine plan to me.”
Goldman’s rifle was tucked in tight to his body. He stopped walking and looked down the barrel. Mr. China was doing the same thing further down the highway. Taking aim.
“He’s real,” Eda said, backing off slowly. The highway felt like quicksand under her feet. And she was sinking fast.
7
Goldman and Mr. China fired off a couple of rounds each.
There was an explosion of noise and as the bullets whizzed back and forth across the highway, Eda jumped on Frankie Boy and pinned him to the road, trying to shield him from any stray bullets. The dog whined and fought hard. He thrashed around like he’d been shot already, desperate to flee the gunfire. Eda wrapped her arms around him and weathered the storm. She wasn’t sure if she was making things better or worse.
Eda watched the action unfold from a distance.
Both men were on their feet, making little or no effort to dodge the shower of bullets flying their way. The grudge should have been settled quickly. When no one went down, Eda began to wonder if the two men were missing on purpose. Maybe they both wanted the manner of death to be more intimate than the sort of death offered by a gun.
By now, a pack of thick clouds had gathered in the sky; a giant gray mist hung low while the rain continued to fall.
The soldiers stood about fifty feet apart.
Eda couldn’t keep Frankie Boy down. He was too big, too strong. With a grunt, Eda let go and the dog scrambled back to his feet in an instant. Eda went with him, her fingers grasping at Frankie Boy’s coat and trying to reestablish a grip.
But then the shooting stopped.
The highway fell silent for a few moments.
Then Goldman and Mr. China started talking to one another again. Eda couldn’t hear anything except the faint rumble of male voices further down the road.
She glanced over her shoulder.
The long, empty highway that led west was behind her. There it was, an open door, calling her back home. At the very least it was freedom. It was no longer Boston and all its dead skyscrapers filled with sad stories and ghosts. This was her chance to make a run for it and with any luck, to get the hell out of that two-man warzone in one piece.
Why wasn’t she running already?
Frankie Boy had the right idea. He’d already put a significant amount of distance between himself and the shootout. Now he’d stopped and turned back, his face pointing at Eda. Surely he must have wondered why she wasn’t doing the smart thing and getting the hell out of there.
“Damn it,” Eda hissed.
She couldn’t leave the old man like that. The shock of seeing Mr. China, of realizing that he wasn’t a mere figment of Goldman’s aging mind – that had been like a slap in the face. It had knocked Eda’s thinking off balance. After that she’d been pushed into self-survival mode. But no, she couldn’t desert him. Goldman was a sick man, even if he wasn’t imagining everything that he’d spoken about during Eda’s time in Boston. He sure as hell wasn’t up to a gunfight, especially not in murky, wet conditions. Or any kind of fight for that matter.
Eda’s hand went to the hilt of her katana. She held it there, her fingers wrapped around the narrow handle.
What good was a sword in a gunfight?
“Fuck.”
She let go of the sword. Instead she reached for the rifle, its sling barely hanging off her shoulder. She held the M4 as she’d been instructed earlier, trying to convince herself that it wasn’t a foreign object. That it felt as natural in her hands as a sword.
“Nothing to it,” she said, moving onto one knee. Large puddles began to surround her on the asphalt. Eda realized that her hands were shaking, struggling to find the right things to grip onto on the body of the M4.
Mr. China looked like he was ready to end the war. With a murderous gleam in his eye, he raised his rifle and peered down the barrel. Eda guessed the foreign soldier was a little younger than Goldman. His movement was sharper. He was faster. If it came down to reflexes, the odds were against the fading Goldman ever seeing another sunrise.
Eda couldn’t get a lock on the target. She placed her belly flat against the soaking wet blacktop. Mr. China didn’t seem too concerned about the girl and the dog who’d been with Goldman moments earlier. Maybe he couldn’t see her. Maybe he was too fixated on Goldman to see anything.
She looked down the barrel and immediately lifted her head up again.
“Damn it,” she said.
From this far back she was more likely to hit Goldman than Mr. China.
Eda leapt back to her feet. A sudden disturbance in the sky caught her attention. A distant rumbling that sliced through the steady sound of the pouring rain.
She scoured the blanket of gray up above. Searching for the source of the rhythmic, guttural machine-like noise.
Then she saw it. The giant bird in the distance, leaving a long smoke trail in its wake. Now it no longer sounded like it was choking – there was a loud whooshing noise, like a scream. It came in fast from the east, from the ocean.
“GOLDMAN!” Eda yelled.
Both soldiers were well aware of the thing in the sky. Even in the midst of their hate-fueled battle to the death, it couldn’t be ignored. Goldman and Mr. China were retreating away from one another, seemingly in slow motion. Their rifles lowered in unison. Both sets of eyes looked upwards, searching for the source of the interruption.
The dark dot with two arms extending outwards flew closer.
“Airplane,” Eda whispered. “That’s an airplane…”
She walked forward, hypnotized and forgetful of the danger. She’d seen airplanes before, large and small, but not for a very, very long time. They’d once been a common sight in the skies above all the big American cities, no more unusual than the cloud formations or birds.
But they were gone. Weren’t they?
Mr. China spun around and shouted out a single word at the top of his voice. He looked back at Goldman, red-faced and snarling like a wild dog. He was infuriated that their shootout had been interrupted.
The Chinaman charged across the median strip towards the edge of the road. He was fast. When he reached a ten-foot wire fence he threw his rifle over to the other side. Mr. China leapt at the fence like it was the only thing preventing him from plummeting into the bowels of Earth. His arms and legs scrambled wildly at the wire strands, trying to secure a solid grip. He went up and over, jumping down onto the grass. As he picked up his gun, he took one last look at the plane overhead. Then, with another shriek of hatred towards the skies, he disappeared around the back of a yellow and brown building.
Goldman was already running back towards Eda. Fear had turned him into a talented sprinter. There was a manic glint in his eyes and he was waving his arms in the air, holding onto the M4 like it was a spear.
“Run!” he screamed. “Run!”
The small airplane shot overhead at a frightening speed. It was a low-flyer, probably no higher than five thousand feet up in the air. Eda watched closely, her hands covering her ears, as the jet traveled past them and made its way towards the skyscrapers of Boston.
“Scouts!” Goldman s
aid, running up alongside Eda. He was breathing hard, fighting to push the words out. “We need to get off the road, now!”
Goldman grabbed Eda by the arm. She felt a surprising strength in the old man’s grip as she was pulled off the road. There was barely enough time to pick up her bag and rifle.
Frankie Boy was barking furiously at the plane.
“Shut up Frankie!” Eda said, glancing towards the sky. “And move it!”
They cut over the median strip, running to the edge of the 93. By now the airplane was a dot on the horizon but that wasn’t enough to persuade Goldman to slow down. He led Eda over to a pair of corrugated iron huts at the side of the road in what looked like an old construction site. Goldman ran past the first hut to the one located furthest away from the highway. He trotted up a short set of metal stairs and tried the door. It opened and Goldman stepped aside, allowing Eda and Frankie Boy to run inside first.
“Ugh,” Eda said, wafting a hand in the air as she walked into the small space.
The inside of the hut smelled like stale smoke. That and other foul, unidentifiable stenches permeated the room. There was a long table in the center of the room, rectangular with eight plastic chairs scattered around it. Four glass ashtrays sat atop the table, countless cigarette butts still lying inside, bathing in a shallow pool of ash.
Goldman closed the door and the room dulled to a blackish-gray. The remaining light trickled in through a solitary window at the side of the hut facing out towards the highway.
Outside the rain was easing off.
Goldman pulled back a seat and fell into it. He was sweating profusely, breathing hard. His body was calling in the debt it was owed after all that running. Looking at him, it was doubtful whether the old man could handle that debt.
“Are you alright?” Eda asked.
Goldman held up a hand as he continued to take deep wheezy breaths. In, out, in out. There was a good chance he’d topple off the chair at any second. Or puke on the floor.
“I just need a minute.”
He took off his cap and wiped his glistening forehead dry with the sleeve of his uniform.
“I’ll be damned,” he said.
After the End Trilogy Box Set Page 36
